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A factually accurate report that I welcome, for I have studied not only law and international relations, but also took a special course about the Resistance Movements Against Hitler during WW2.

I have never met one single person, except the teacher of that course, who could explain the phenomenon Hitler to me, including my own family. So I researched for many years until I found tidbits of truth that I voiced here and there, always meeting fierce resistance, especially from Germans.

Either people are fascinated by his rhetoric or they block off completely saying it was a ‘German’ problem (which it was not at all), or they blame the Weimar Republic—which is not entirely wrong but also not entirely right. Of course, Hitler profited of the political mistakes that this socialist regime committed, but that cannot explain all of his evil success in Europe and the World at large.

Let me get to the point quickly for I do not intend to waste your precious time. What you need to understand now is that you got a coalition in place, Turkey and Russia, whose goals are unworthy enough to be listed as destroying democracy as we know it. It is sold to you right now as a trade alliance but that is just the beginning. It will be a full blown political and military alliance that will oppose Nato—yes, despite the fact that Turkey is a member of Nato. But see only what will happen over the next months. I predict that by the end of this year, Turkey has got a clear distance to Nato and Nato has got a clear distance to Turkey.

Already by the news today, Nato, under American command, is shifting nukes from shelters in Turkey to Romania, and this is only a tiny detail of what could be called the ‘new strategy.’ Trust has been rendered very thin by Turkey’s absolutist claims and the purge of the country after the coup.

The mix we get in the media is honestly confusing. What is clear is that Turkey is in a state of ongoing chaos where separatist movements plan and execute deadly attacks on police and military forces, while most of the time unfortunately civilians are the victims.

Here are my predictions:

The Turkey-Russia Alliance will be a fortress against the West, based on a coalition of extremism, also religious extremism (Islam and Orthodoxy) against the liberal-minded Roman Catholic Church that is the base layer of Western democracy.

The Turkey-Russia Alliance will be fueled by extremist Islamic movements and there will be a pseudo-war against ISIS for in truth, both Turkey and Russia are going to use these extremist forces for their profit (not officially so, of course).

The Turkey-Russia Alliance will fuel resentment against the West, Western values, and Western culture, increasingly so, including democratic values, and both countries will show on a daily level how they envisage humanity to be guided by propaganda—just as Hitler did.

Extremist and populist movements in Europe will be fascinated by these strong ideological statements and try to implement their strategies in their anti-EU political statements. We will face a lot of support for totally irrational and totally separatist movements in Europe, from 2017, and and even now emerging.

WW3 will start in 2017 with either an invasion of Ukraine or Crimea by Russia, else a false flag operation, and a totally debilitating response of the United States, a country that all over recent history has shown to not understand the dynamics in Europe, nor in the Middle East.

The History

I saw it coming since the 1980s when, after graduating in law in Germany, I specialized on International Law and European Integration. My vision about a unified Europe was critical from the start.

After successfully passing both of my state examinations and registering as a lawyer, then acquiring my ‘Certificate for European Studies’ from Saarland University, I participated in a competition for a post at the European Parliament Administration in Brussels. Among 800 lawyers from Germany, only 24 made it to the waiting list. I was among them.

But six months afterwards I was informed that not even the first of the list had been recruited. This opened my eyes about how money is wasted in the EU, as they do these competitions every year, spending millions of Euros on examining people, and then recruiting nobody for ‘budgetary reasons.’

Then I got befriended with a department director in the European Commission in Brussels, Dr. T. I visited him several times and we became friends. He was one of the teachers who were teaching ‘European Integration’ at the ‘Europa Institut’ at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. Dr. T. told me honestly he was very dissatisfied with his life and his work. He had just completed another ‘Richtlinie’ (which is how ‘laws’ are called on the EU level) and it went into the drawer because of ‘political decision-making.’ He advised me to seek out other job options and as my own mother had worked for 25 years for the government, I knew that it’s not for me.

The Situation

All my friends deserted me, except the ones from outside of Europe. My European friends thought I was ‘totally negative’ about Europe and the EU. Well, I was just realistic and want to give here some recent details why after all I was right, and they were wrong.

Just review the ten slides on this article to see where we are now in Europe, and you know what’s going on:

France
Leader of the French National Front Marine le Pen has pledged to hold a French referendum.

Netherlands
Dutch far-right Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders pledged to make the EU membership a key issue in the next general election. In fact, a whopping 88 percent of the people polled by a top Dutch newspaper said they were in favor of an in/out vote along British lines.

Austria
Former right-wing Austrian Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer said his country should have a referendum within a year.

Poland
Law and Justice leader Jaroslav Kaczynski said: ‘The conclusion is obvious. We need a new European Treaty.’

Sweden
Before Brexit, Swedish MEP Peter Lundgren Denmark and Sweden were already on the brink of quitting, suggesting a ‘Nordic trading bloc’ led by Britain could be born.

Denmark
The Danes held a referendum last December and decided against handing over more powers to the EU.

Italy
Northern League leader Matteo Salvin will start a petition calling for an EU referendum, however his party scored a dismal 4% at the last election.

Assessment

The very fact that there are 8 ‘candidates’ for exiting the EU shows that my long-term prognosis was never in doubt: EU is a façade and nobody really wants it, and this being said, it is obvious that a political union, which was the ultimate goal from the start (with a common defense strategy and a unified military force) will never see the day.

That in turn means that Europe will be exposed to war in the upcoming Nato-Russia war, 2017-2023, for they have no effective defense in place, except perhaps Germany. And also note that for the first time since 1945, Germany has upgraded its military and for the first time since 1945 during the recent terror attacks armed soldiers were in the streets for protecting civilians.

Also important to know is that the gap between Germany and Turkey widens as Germany has sent weapons to the Kurdish separatists in Iraq, while Turkey-Germany relations turn sour over the refugee deal and the refusal of the EU to agree to visa-free travel for Turcs as well as the German Bundestag vote about the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey and the recent report issued by the German Ministry of Interior about Turkey supporting extremist Islamist groups.

The peace in Europe is over soon, wait for next year. Separatist politics always in human history was the by-product of conflict, while unifying efforts are the by-product of peace. After 70 years of unification in Europe, the cardhouse collapses right now under our eyes and the result will once again be war, civil war, large-scale civil unrest, relentless terror attacks and ongoing economic decline.

And while the details may not be that important at this point, what is important is that the European Spirit, once so much alive, is dead now, and this is a grave result, for since the Renaissance, and here all international law experts agree, there was nothing as destructive for human growth and world peace than the construct of national sovereignty.

And this is exactly where the devil is in the game: it is once again the uprising of nationalism and national pride that brings the carefully built European structure to disintegrate. And national sovereignty has been shown as the single most destructive political ideology that was ever made a part of international law.

Where is the Great Dictator now, after having put dirt on all and everybody, after having tweeted everybody to hell, after having told Europe it’s in a mess with crime all over and a chaos, after having told Mexico to prepare for a big wall to look at and the Pope that a Trump doesn’t take criticism even from the highest religious authority, after having threatened Clinton and many others with law suits?

Where is the Great Poker Player now, and where are his trumps? He was always so brilliant in business and now needs to compliment Vladimir Putin to be a ‘great leader’ to gain some respect from abroad?

Where is the Great Military Leader now who said that ISIS is a problem for school boys for ‘I will bomb the hell out of them and that will solve the problem once for all.’

Where is the Great Peace Maker who admittedly is a great negotiator in business deals, and who recently voiced ‘why should we refrain from using nukes’ to make an end to ISIS? I can’t see the reason.’

Where is the Great Rhetoric who tells Obama that he has no charisma while Obama according to thousands of experts in public speaking around the world has been said to be one of the most gifted public speakers in all of human history? And this brilliance is impossible without having charisma! (I am sure that even Hillary Clinton will agree with this statement).

Where is the Great Statesman who wants to lead America into new peace and prosperity, and not just that, into ‘Making America Great Again?’ Who can say that America is *not* great now? And why? What about seeing this simply as ‘fabricated truth’ or ‘fabricated consent’ in the sense this term was coined by Noam Chomsky?

Where is the Great Winner who said in all his books ‘never give up’ and now begins to see reality, saying, he can ‘after all’ lose the campaign without tears, going back to his ‘good life’ with a ‘good family’ and play ‘good golf’ after such an after all very stressful outpost of his usual business activity.

Ever thought, Mr. Trump, that your predictable defeat in the national elections will have some serious repercussions upon your business?

For political observers, it is obvious that what is underlying, not what is apparent, is what moves states into certain actions, and avoid certain other actions. In other words, when you see the world only under the political lupe, you see it wrongly.

States, as human beings, are motivated by hidden agendas, by underlying motives, and by psychological reasons.

The obvious is in stark conflict with the rational mind when we see Putin and Erdogan heading into an unprecedented, while still premature, brotherhood. And while the political spectrum seems to be in conflict with this ‘defense solution,’ this is only so on the surface of things.

Turkey belongs to Nato and thus would have to be considered as an ‘enemy’ by Russia. The incident of downing a Russian warplane by the Turkish air force in 2015 gave another apparent reason that this had to be so. But it was not so. This ‘conflict’ was simply the confrontation of two thick-headed statesmen but it had no implications for the long term relationship between the two countries.

So what? Why are the two military giants approaching each other again in a most friendly manner and coordinate their military strategies?

The reasons are not political, or only randomly political, for they are mainly psychological. Both countries have hidden ethnic cleasing agendas the West rightly opposes to, both countries have modern militaries and are basically aggressive-minded in their international policies, both countries favor a strong-man leadership backed by ruthless police surveillance and a more or less total crackdown on free media. Thus both nations foster dictatorial regimes that are set to eat up more and more segments of their populations by large-scale state propaganda.

Thus, both nations are basically anti-democratic in their base setup and this will get worse over time, as a matter of internal dynamics in every dictatorial and freedom-hostile regime. But this is precisely what unites them in a front now, which could be called a ‘red front’ — and attentive readers may well remember the clear predictions by Nostradamus who said the great and final Armageddon—also called WW3— would start with an alliance between Turkey and Russia, based upon orthodox religions and against Roman Catholicism as practiced by the freedom-loving West.

It would be naive to believe that this amalgam of power, ruthless state doctrine, anti-democracy and fascism would not attract extremist forces and mercenaries on their side. That means that these regimes will be increasingly sympathetic to extremist forces in the Middle East, in Russia, and in Turkey, and wherever else in the world. This is simply so, as a matter of natural law, as like attracts like.

In other words and to summarize, we are presently in a phase of psychological warfare where the pacts or blocks are forming and evolving that later will represent the opponents in real war. Besides, military and political history clearly shows that during phases of fascist supremacy and the oppression of free press, together with endless ‘crackdowns’ on opponents (or imagined opponents), nations split up and become politically polarized, which means that strong and sometimes deadly opposition forces are set into place and fueled by hatred and contradiction, and ultimately, by feelings of humiliation!

The result of that process is civil war, and this is the reason why wars all through human history seldom are clean ring fights, for civil wars are often cross-border and make for chaotic—and often temporary—alliances that further disrupt the already freakish trust-building between superpowers.

China, which is a country that still today has not implemented the rule of law and that persecutes freedom-affirming local and foreign journalists, is likely to be on the line of this psychological setup that can be summarized as the putting on stage of new state oligarchies that coordinate their efforts on a less than official level in order to gain worldpower, even if this power then has to be shared among three parties.

But where is the United States in this picture, where is Europe, where is Japan? These are the burning questions that I leave to your own psychological and political IQ to answer. When you know you have asked the right questions, you know you will get the right answers.

Let me only mention one tiny detail in a very complex picture. Now Europe is not only dependent on Russian gas, it is also dependent on Turkish gas. See that on a timeline into the future, and where this dependency possibly can lead to.

Or take the recent selling out of Europe by Angela Merkel’s 6 billion dollar deal with Turkey that was equally, again psychologically speaking, a humiliation for freedom-loving Europe as Amnesty International and many international lawyers have condemned this pact as anti-human rights. That it won’t work out anyway, nobody really cares, the refugees are in the same mess as before, the deal will go overboard, and with it, many newly arriving refugees, as the numbers are rising against all predictions to the contrary. And Angela Merkel has less chances to be re-elected, thereby creating a political gap that will be filled with a center-right coalition, probably headed by Frauke Petry, the head of the new right-wing populist party ‘Alternative for Germany.’

There is real danger that this ‘alternative’ will be the last one for Germany for in state controlled regimes there are notoriously no alternatives and in populist psychology there is always only ‘one solution.’ And because life is infinitely complex, this kind of political psychology must lead to anti-life ideologies and lots of violence and chaos.

This is a prototypical example how we are served fake solutions by our so-called politicians who have become administrators of problems, instead of being problem-solvers. The refugee crisis is worse than ever, only half a page to read to know all the truth which in this case is in the numbers:

The easing of tensions between the two nations can be a positive move conducive to preventing the regional situation from becoming complicated. What is worrying is that the rapid formation of a closer relationship between the two countries noticeably points to their ulterior motive of restraining the United States and European nations.

Behold, this is not popular knowledge, as most people still believe that Turkey is backed by the US. Superseded! The US top level has given clear signals that it no longer backs ‘islamistic’ Turkey, a country that runs at high speed against democracy, by practicing torture large-scale and now at the brink of re-instituting the death penalty.

The claims of Turkey they were not intending to build a new ‘axis’ through their alliance with Russia are just eye-wiping. It is typical for states to deny what they most intend to do, especially in the beginning stages of a new pact.

That also has drastic consequences in Europe, in the sense that Turkey has disqualified itself to become EU member. The door is closed now because EU law is punitive toward these two factors—torture and death penalty—because they are anti-human rights.

I said earlier in this blog that Angela Merkel has sold out Europe by making the contract with Turkey regarding refugee reflow. I predicted that it won’t work out, and it doesn’t—apart from that, it’s against human rights regulations according to Amnesty International.

Relationships between Turkey and Germany have deteriorated ever since and are right now at a breaking point. Turkey’s top team has repeatedly slammed Germany and Angela Merkel over the last weeks. Fact is that the EU will not grant Turkey the Schengen access (free visa travel), and the numbers of Turkish refugees to Germany have doubled just recently. Germany will thus remain the one single nation on earth that gives a refuge to the Kurds, and this role will be increasingly important.

Erdogan will be backed by Putin in his ethnic cleansing strategies—which is the same what Putin does with the Tchechen—and his cementing his family clan into a strong leadership that will be dictatorial in every respect.

Turkey has a very strong and well-trained military—so has Russia! Even if China doesn’t back or join, the alliance between Turkey and Russia as a ‘defense strategy’ is a red flag that cannot be ignored!

Forecast

More migrants will arrive in Italy in the coming months as weather conditions improve, which will reopen the central Mediterranean route and clear new crossings in the Adriatic Sea.

Though renewed migration into Italy will not be as dramatic as in Greece, it could create domestic problems and tension with surrounding countries.

Rome will try to keep the Schengen Agreement in place, support plans to create a European border and coast guard, and demand the reform of existing EU migration rules.

Analysis

For the past six months, Greece has been at the center of Europe’s migration crisis as nearly 1 million people reached its shores by sea, mostly from Turkey. But Italy has been dealing with its own migration problem, one that, while not rivaling Greece in terms of size and scope, could be just as problematic for the fragmenting European Union.

According to the United Nations, more than 150,000 people reached southern Italy by sea in 2015, particularly between April and September, when weather conditions make it easier for small boats to cross the Mediterranean. Most of these people, assisted by human trafficking organizations that take advantage of the chaos in Libya, come from countries such as Nigeria, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, Somalia and Eritrea seeking economic opportunities in Europe. They are less likely to qualify for asylum than migrants arriving in Greece, most of whom are fleeing from war zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, the European Union does not have a political counterpart in Libya to negotiate measures to manage migration flows the same way it does in Turkey.

Over the winter, the central Mediterranean route has been relatively quiet, with fewer than 10,000 people arriving in Italy between January and February. By comparison, more than 126,000 people arrived in Greece through the eastern Mediterranean route during the same period. But migration through the Mediterranean to Italy will resume around April, likely peaking between June and August, once again forcing Italian and European coast guards to launch more rescue operations at sea and provide migrants with shelter, food and clothes.

Meanwhile, many migrants on other routes, blocked from continuing their increasingly difficult treks into Northern Europe, will simply start finding alternatives. During 2015 and early 2016, most asylum seekers who reached Greece tried to enter Austria and Germany by crossing Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia. But Macedonia has built a fence on its border with Greece, and a large number of migrants (some 36,000 according to Greek authorities) are now being forced to stay in Greece or find other countries to enter. Moreover, even if negotiations between the European Union and Turkey succeed and Ankara starts taking back migrants who reached Greece from Turkey, migration will not stop completely, nor will EU member states’ rising hostility toward migrants deter some from trying to reach their desired destination.

Albania: The New Stepping-Stone to Italy

Consequently, an alternate route to Italy will likely arise across the Adriatic Sea, using Albania as the transit state. Italian authorities have warned of human trafficking organizations in Albania potentially using rubber boats to cross the Strait of Otranto, which at its narrowest point is only about 72 kilometers (45 miles) wide. It would not be the first time: In the early 1990s, thousands of Albanians reached Italy by boat. To this day criminal groups cross the strait on a regular basis to smuggle drugs into Italy. The strait was even used by a small number of migrants last year. And because all migrants rescued by the Italian coast guard are considered potential refugees and cannot be sent back to Albania, migrants could be incentivized to try their luck across the Strait of Otranto.

In early March, media in southern Italian cities along the Adriatic Sea, including Lecce and Bari, reported that local governments were making plans to host more of the asylum seekers reaching their shores. On March 4, Italy’s interior minister met with his Albanian counterpart to discuss a potential Adriatic migration route and to increase intelligence sharing.

Still, the number of people reaching Italy via Albania will be relatively small. The Greece-Albania border is mountainous and harder to cross than the Greece-Macedonia border, which will deter some migrants. But rugged geography also means the Greece-Albania border is hard to protect. Should migrants start trying to enter Albania, Tirana’s first reaction will be to close its border, though many asylum seekers will probably find ways to avoid border controls altogether. Some will try to reach Montenegro and Bosnia, but some will try to cross the Adriatic Sea to reach Italy.

Yet unlike in the early 1990s, Albania now has a functioning police force and better control of its territory. It also has a handle on organized crime, making it difficult for criminal organizations to smuggle people into Italy on a large scale. Rubber boats are also few and too small to transport a massive number of people. But though arrivals from Albania will not increase dramatically, the combination of a more active central Mediterranean migratory route and a burgeoning Adriatic route will create problems for Italy and its neighbors.

Rome Tries a Different Approach

In the past, Italy’s strategy for coping with summer migration spikes has been to register only a fraction of migrants and let the rest move on to other EU states, creating friction with France and Austria. But Paris and Vienna only sporadically reintroduced border controls in response to Italy’s methods. This year the situation is different: Border controls have become the new norm in Europe. France and Austria have taken a tougher stance on migration and probably will not be as tolerant with Italy as they have been in the past. Switzerland, which is not an EU member, also would not hesitate to close its border with Italy.

The result, not unlike Greece’s current predicament, would be migrants becoming stranded at Italy’s northern borders. Migrants’ attempts to cross Italy’s border with France (the easiest to cross on foot) could reignite tension between Italian and French authorities. Other countries would also probably request that Italy build more reception centers and become more effective at fingerprinting the migrants reaching its shores.

The influx of newcomers will create political problems for Italy at home as well. Many municipalities and regional governments, especially those controlled by the center-right opposition, will refuse to host migrants. Immigration will be on the campaign agendas of many candidates in June municipal elections, which will test the popularity of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s center-left Democratic Party. So far Renzi has benefited from a fragmented opposition, but the migration crisis could cause the anti-immigration and Euroskeptical opposition to join forces. Renzi, in turn, will likely once again use the crisis to justify higher public spending, which will create problems for Italy with the eurozone down the road.

To combat these emerging problems, the Italian government will continue to push for an EU-wide approach to the Continent’s migration crisis. Rome will support negotiations with Ankara and side with the European Commission when it comes to enforcing a controversial scheme to distribute asylum seekers among EU member states. Rome will also demand the reform of the Dublin system, which stipulates that asylum applications should take place in the country of first entry to the European Union.

Rome will also push to keep the Schengen Agreement in place and resist member states’ efforts to suspend Greece’s membership in the passport-free area. Italy has a lot to lose if the Schengen system is abolished because migrants reaching the Italian shores would find it harder to move on to Northern Europe if permanent border controls were put in place. Italy will likely cooperate with Germany in this matter, since Berlin is concerned about the economic impact of re-establishing border controls.

Finally, Rome will support plans to create a European border and coast guard to coordinate operations among national border authorities (the Dutch rotating presidency of the European Union has promised to present a plan on the issue by June). But Italy will join the countries on the bloc’s external borders, including Greece, Poland and Hungary, in resisting European Commission proposals to create a structure granting Brussels the authority to deploy the new security force without the consent of the concerned member state.

Italy’s migration problems will not be nearly as dramatic as Greece’s, but they will do little to prevent the European Union from fragmenting, both politically and territorially. In the meantime, the European Union will struggle to reach a credible agreement with Turkey and stem migration to Greece, while the central Mediterranean and Adriatic routes will open new areas to watch as the Continent’s migration crisis unfolds.

I still remember when studying European Integration at Saarland University 1980-1982, that Britain at that time was so much bothered with buying butter from Denmark. They ultimately refused it and continued to buy their butter from New Zealand. That was for me a signal of non-integration, while the matter sounds almost ridiculous, but in terms of economics it’s not. Britain was adhering to their old alliances, remembrance of their great British Commonwealth.

By the way, this is an interesting word. Common Wealth. Yes. It’s exactly the European Idea. But Britain defines it differently than the other five founding members of the Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft as founded in 1975 and named EWG.

I cannot mention all of Britain’s great economic achievements here after Thatcher, but one is so noteworthy that it must be mentioned. It was Margaret Thatcher’s great idea to revive housing and transform it into a lively investment business. That idea worked. I keep receiving interesting mailings from British real estate companies from Manchester to London offering me student housing investment for 8% p.a., five years guaranteed rental. And I have studied one or two of these projects in depth and was on the phone with the agent for quite a time, having a good impression. It’s a good return and the substance is well-built, solid, and professional. No foul deals.

This is just one tiny aspect of the new prosperous Britain, not to mention the incredible profits that are made by real estate companies in London for high-end properties. It’s around 30% p.a. and more for celebrity sites that go into the hundreds of millions each.

And please, then, be open-minded enough to contrast that with certain Nordic and Eastern EU members who are at the border of state bankruptcy. Why should Britain continue to finance them?

Let me advance a second point. When Britain does something it is done thoroughly, not just superficially and so to speak showmanly. Housing for refugees is known to be of much better quality compared to Germany, let alone the standards in France, Italy, or Greece. That involves more money, and more accuracy and sense of detail.

David Cameron signs into this tradition, a man who is known for his clear statements, very much contrasting those of other European leaders, except Angela Merkel. And it therefore does not come as a surprise that recently Merkel and Cameron had very good talks. That makes sense. When there is Brexit, there will be a new start of British-German bilateral relationships, outside of the EU framework, and I have an intuition they will prime all others within Europe. For Merkel does understand Cameron while most other EU members just frown upon Brexit, which is not a constructive response.

One may be critical about the idea of Greece leaving the EU, but with Britain it is a totally different matter. Those who will suffer from Brexit are of course those qualified workers and businesses who are German or French and are thriving in Britain. But I am sure constructive solutions can be found bilaterally between Britain and France and Germany, respectively, so I see no problem here.

One doesn’t need to be of Einsteinian intelligence to connect the dots here. All those who still believe I was a negative thinker will think twice. The Alternative for Germany (AFD) has now gained 20% while only 5% are needed to enter the Bundestag as a political party. While these state elections are only signposts for the eventual federal elections, the three states that were involved are representative.

This is an explosive mix, a recipe for civil war, for as I have predicted it since more than 20 years, it’s right-wing fascism, also called populism as an euphemism that will get us into WW3, and no other problem. The refugee crisis is only the catalyzer and therefore I believe that Merkel cannot be blamed for this landslide into fascism. First of all it’s not a Germany-only phenomenon. See only the scary rise of antisemitism in France and the right-wing dictatorial touch all over the Balkan states including Turkey.

Then consider the fact that in the United States, too, the general tone during the election campaign becomes more and more populist and one-sided, narrow-minded and provincial, and last not least see how weapon sales are rising virtually every month, fostered by growing fears of multiple threats and declining trust between nations linked by diplomatic ties.

Everyone who in this situation sees happy times ahead or business as usual must be struck with blindness or is an eternal Peter Pan. And to end this post with a positive note, Merkel’s sense of realities can still be very useful in Germany, especially now, for she might be able to use her power to dampen the right-wing zeal of the AFD once a coalition with the CDU is reached. I wish her all the best for this goal, while I still believe that she sold Europe out to Turkey in an unprecedented way and this will have negative repercussions for her career.

After five years of a brutal and senseless conflict over a quarter of a million Syrians have been killed and over half the population forced from their homes out of fear and want. Some 4.6 million people are barely existing in places that few can leave and aid cannot reach. A further 4.8 million people have fled the country. Syria today is a very different place – almost unrecognizable in parts – that will take generations to rebuild.

In the past few weeks however, we are seeing signs of momentum, fragile glimmers of hope. Fewer bombs are falling; humanitarian access has opened up in some places; negotiators from all sides are preparing to come together and talk. As humanitarians we welcome progress where it means real change.

The United Nations, NGOs and partners have seized new opportunities to reach people who have had nothing for a very long time. Despite danger and uncertainty we are trying new delivery methods, constantly trying to negotiate ways to reach people. Through regular aid and the recent deliveries to besieged towns we have managed to reach over six million people since the beginning of 2016.

However, until all parties to this conflict stop attacking civilians, schools, markets and hospitals, we will continue to press them on their obligations and hold them to account. Medical supplies and equipment are still being removed at checkpoints: this is unacceptable.

Until parties to the conflict fully open up safe, unimpeded access to everyone we will keep trying to reach civilians by all and any means possible, however challenging. We are able to reach more people now in besieged areas: but we are yet to reach one in every five besieged Syrians who urgently need help and protection.

While we are starting to get basic supplies to communities who have been cut off for months or more, it is just not enough. For example, we are extremely concerned about the situation in northern rural Homs and in Aleppo, where around 500,000 people are caught behind active frontlines. Two million people are in areas controlled by ISIL.

We and our partners remain ready to deliver assistance. The United Nations continues to work to negotiate access with all parties and to deliver aid to people across the hard-to-reach areas, including the besieged locations we have not yet been able to reach.

No one wants to see a sixth year of conflict start on 15 March. Young people across Syria need to hope and believe that their future lies in their homeland. That they will have education, healthcare, homes and jobs. That life holds more than fear, violence and hunger.

We use our collective voice to call on all parties, local and international, for this anniversary to be the last one and for the political talks to bring real peace and an end to the suffering in Syria.

New York/Geneva/Rome/Amman, 11 March 2016

The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.